That Blog

Despite the fact that I tried to be at everything, including the opening of an envelope,  it would appear that his attempts to meet up with me over the time of the Soccer World Cup were unsuccessful and so, Prince William settled for second best and asked Kate to be his wife. Congratulations to them!

The Happy Couple

I can say I will definitely booking the afternoon off to watch the ceremony on 29^th April 2011. I do love a royal wedding and despite the rather pear-shaped ending of the marriage, I still clearly remember watching and loving the marriage ceremony of Di & Charles can’t wait to see what Kate looks like on the Big Day!!

All this and more...in 3-D

Even though you might not have a 3-D ready telly at home, broadcasters are talking about showing live footage to pubs and movie theaters that are 3-D ready!! So, if you think your Cane & Cream Soda Wedding drinking antics might mean you are excluded from the Royal guest-list, worry not…you will feel just like you are sitting there with Betty, Phil, Charles, Cammy…you know, the fam! Might need to bust out those nerdy glasses, crack open the champers and enjoy the pageantry!!

A Hadeda would be very happy with this nest...

Right…so just so you know, Barnet is cockney rhyming slang for hair…as in Barnet Faire.

Anyway, so we all know how much we love a good hair day and even better is a good hair day at the end of a VERY windy day in Cape Town…OK, is there actually such a thing? I suspect the only good hair day at the end of a windy day in Cape Town would be if you were going to give a talk about birds and you needed to show what a Hadeda nest looks like.

Anyway, this NFL player’s barnet is so valuable, that it has been insured for $1m by a shampoo company. That is a LOT of money for a head of hair…he does have an awful lot of hair, but Head ‘n Shoulders is no Kerestase or L’Oreal or whatever you get persuaded to buy from your hairdresser, and you really need to use a lot of it to justify that insurance value!!! I just hope it has AWESOME detangling properties!

A failed Britain’s Got Talent contestant is suing the show for £2.5million and accused the makers of not putting up clips of her singing ‘beautifully’ on their website.

She has even been quoted as saying ‘I do have the ability to move people. People have cried when they have heard me sing.’ I think maybe you should judge for yourselves…

The former nurse claims the show erred by failing to take into account a medical condition she says affected her performance. She says she suffers from cervical spine neuritis which can affect hearing. Symptoms include head and shoulder pain and and can mean that suffers may not be able to hear their own voice in noisy environments.

Since the whole event took place, she said: ‘My health and wellbeing has been damaged. I have been going downhill quite markedly this year.’ And despite having once built up a reputation as a singer at charity events, she added: ‘Last year I had no phone calls at all.’

Mmmm…after watching that video, I would be interested to hear just how popular she was at charity events…

[Source: www.dailymail.co.uk]

So, I told you yesterday that Betty Windsor was headed Stateside…yip, obviously inspired by the recent Sex and the City 2 movie, Bettie and Phil decided it was time to hit the Big Apple and see how things had changed since their last visit in 1976.

On the off chance that any New York residents were faced with HRH and weren’t sure what to do or how to behave, the New York Daily News offered its readers a quick etiquette guide. They were advised not to mention the Duchess of York, to stick to small talk about dogs or horses, and reminded: ‘Don’t offer a handshake, a fistbump or a high five.’

Brilliant!! I would just love to see the average New Yorker trying to High Five or fistbump HRH!! I think the line that might be used is “We are not amused…”

[Source: The Daily Mail]

I have often seen the ad on the home shopping network for The Bedazzler and wondered whether anyone had ever bought one and if so, whether they used it…now I see that they do.

Betty Windsor is currently on tour of Canada and the US of A and decided that why go buy a new frock when you can just bedazzle up and old one. 

She first wore this frock to a State dinner in Trinidad and Tobago…and to give it a bit of an island feel, she got her peeps to pretty it up by embroidering it  with appliqué birds and flowers…nice touch don’t you think? 

Betty goes with a subtle island vibe

Then, when wondering what to wear to a banquet during her trip to Canada…Betty did what all street-wise girls would do…save money for shopping and sight-seeing on the trip by breathing new life into an old frock. Yip, Betty got her peeps busy again and this time they were to unpick the island feel (not really appropriate for Toronto) and get busy with the Bedazzler. What a stroke of genius…a fortune freed up for shopping and perhaps some pressies for friends and family back home and maybe even be able to catch a show on Broadway! Nice one Betty!! 

Betty bedazzled to the Max

 So, for a little close up view of what she did there… 

The Island Vibe

Unpick that embroidery, bring on the Bedazzler and look what you get… 

Swap Island-vibe for a bit of Bling...

Good work Betty!!

[Source: The Daily Mail]

Have you noticed that at the end of some matches, the teams swap shirts? Well, if you haven’t, it is definitely something worth hanging around for. Perhaps, try not let The Bloke flick over to the other sports channel to see what is happening in the golf/rugby/cricket as the final whistle goes and see what wonderful things transpire on the field.

Anyway, ahead of the Portugal vs Ivory Coast game this afternoon, I thought you might be interested in a little glimpse of what the shirt-swapping exercise could hold for you. Do you remember I showed you those delightful pictures of Cristiano Ronaldo? Well, our favourite Portuguese soccer player is getting his kit off again…this time he is doing it for Armani. The new Armani advertising campaign is about to be launched and guess who their poster boy is?? Yip, Cristiano himself.

A thing of beauty isn’t he??

"I can't believe she has put THOSE clothes out for me to wear"

"You're great! My last girlfriend hated me lying on the couch when I got back from a training session"

Alas, with the nasty cold spell that seems to have gripped the country, I am not sure anyone is going to be too keen to whip their shirt off, but well worth hanging around for after the final whistle…just in case.

Kick off is at 4:00pm today. Enjoy!

[Images courtesy of Armani]

We are on the eve of the most monumental sporting event the continent has ever seen and the country is abuzz with excitement!!

I headed to Ye Olde V&A for a spot of retail therapy yesterday and was just astounded by the amount of foreigners shopping up a storm and taking photos of completely random things (spotted a couple taking a photo of the escalators…is that to show folks back home how advanced we are here in Deepest Darkest??). Anyway, I realised that it was quite possible that there were WAGs (Wives and Girlfriends) of some of the Soccer Stars walking amongst the happy shoppers and that I wouldn’t know them if I tripped over their Gucci shopping bag…so have decided to compose a little photo line up of some of them and thought it might help you too…as I always say, That Blog is here to help you!!

I have also included a little photo of the blokes they hang out with…just so you can carry on the good work you have been doing on familiarising your self with the stars!!

So I read it in the tabloids (and it must be true if we read it there…) that Shakira has arrived safely at OR Tambo and is settling in to life in Jozi ahead of her big performance on Thursday night at the Opening Ceremony of the Soccer World Cup 2010.

Don’t you just love the nice inclusion of the substantial police escort that she needed to get through the throngs of fans at ORT?

Is that one gun on the man’s hip not enough to keep an ardent Shakira fan at bay??

I also noticed the practical travelling footwear that she chose for the trip… Although, I am guessing that she wasn’t travelling in the part of the plane where the footwell would be completely chockers once she had kicked those off and swapped them for those nice nylon socks (you know, the ones with no heels?). Am also thinking that if she did spend the night in those skinny jeans…it wasn’t a comfortable trip.

I am really hoping that the man with the gun in this 2nd pic is the same one as in the previous shot, as I would be VERY disappointed to think that more than 1 heavily armed police man was necessary to protect her from her fans and paparazzi!

Anyway, She is here, IT is almost here…can you feel it??

(Source: The Daily Mail)

Picture the scene…

You have just arrived at what is being tipped as The Party of the Year, you are in your new, very beautiful (very expensive) dress, looking drop dead gorgeous. You cast your eye around the room to check out the competition and suss out the Manscape, when, a waiter carrying a tray of delightful looking canapes stumbles and before you can say “Dry Clean Only”, you are wearing 14 Smoked Salmon blinis as accessories. Worse still is that you know it is far too early in the evening for lights to have been dimmed enough that people might not see AND due to the fact that welcome drinks are still being served, it is highly unlikely that the average guest will have drunk enough champers not to notice…all you want to do is get in your car, head home, run a hot bath and go to bed and notch this one up to experience, but you decided to be responsible and not drive and the Designated Driver has just spotted the man of her dreams and is going nowhere…plus she seems fairly adamant that salmon is the new black.

Been there, done that?? Well, if it puts your mind at rest…it probably has happened to everyone. Even old Queenie! Look at the absolute STINKER she had the other night at King Constantine of Greece’s birthday shindig…and she had the paparazzi to deal with!!

Not ideal...

First, a fellow guest manages to drop most of their dinner down the  front of her lovely aquamarine frock and then as if that isn’t bad enough, the strap of her evening bag breaks.

"Must get Philip to mend this tomorrow"

I suspect that at some time in the evening, she may have thought to herself “We are not amused”

Anyway, by all accounts (and those accounts were in the tabloids…and who are we to question those) she remained the “epitome of elegance” throughout the evening. Well done Liz…you did better that I would have. I am not sure “epitome of elegance” would have been the words that would have been used to describe me if those things had happened on my night out!!

Unfortunately, the subject line of this post does not refer to great Greek poets, but in fact to a survey done for a leading US entertainment magazine. In this survey, Homer Simpson was been named as the greatest ever character created for TV and film over the last 20 years!! Homer pipped Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tony Soprano (The Sopranos) to first place.

The creator of the Simpson’s Matt Groening seems to think that the reason for Homer’s popularity is that people are able to identify with him and relate to Homer because “we’re all secretly propelled by desires we can’t admit to”

The other characters in the top-10 are Rachel from Friends, Johnny Depp’s Edward Scissorhands, Anthony Hopkin’s Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs), Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and The City) and the cartoon character Spongebob Squarepants.

If you are a fan of the Twilight series you either fall into the Vampire camp (Robert Pattinson fans) or Werewolf camp (Taylor Lautner fans). Anyway, if you fall into either camp, you are probably very excited about the third movie in the series that is starting on 30 June 2010. Personally, I am a Werewolf fan…not so sure about pasty white, sparkly vampires…they just don’t do it for me.

Anyway, here’s the storyline that we have to look forward to…

As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob — knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. (Source: Wikipedia)

If you are not a fan of the Twilight series, you are almost certainly pretty indifferent on werewolves or vampires and will be skipping this post to read about something more interesting on That Blog!

Sales of Pond’s Cold Cream have soared after Kylie Minogue attributed her youthful good looks to the old faithful pot o’ Cold Cream.

Kylie, who turns 42 on Friday, admits that she has had a few botox injections too…but apparently it is actually the Pond’s beauty treatment that really has given her such a beautiful skin. She says she has never had any cosmetic surgery, she just followed her Mum’s advice and Mum was right (isn’t she alway )…so apparently a dollop of Cold Cream every night and perhaps the occasional Botox injection and look what your skin can look like! Pretty flipping good actually!!!

Kylie Minogue (Photo: REX FEATURES)

I suspect that a marketing/advertising person or 2 somewhere in the world with the responsibility of managing the rather lack-lustre brand of Pond’s Cold Cream must of got quite a shock when the so-called “Kylie effect” hit the world because I can’t recall the last time I even saw an ad for the product.

Mmmm…I don’t know about you girls, I am not completely convinced. Waddaya reckon? She does look fab, but I am not sure I am dashing off to the local Clicks to stock up on a tub of the stuff that reminds me of School Plays and Drama class. I think my skin would probably benefit at LOT more from making use of a few of the great winter specials available at the various spas and salons!!

This does not relate to the trashy 90′s song that will probably be stuck in your head now that I have mentioned it…this relates to the REAL DEAL. Yip, Prince William and Prince Harry are heading to SA for that Soccer Spectacular that we are all getting excited about…the 2010 Soccer World Cup!!  So, Girls, I have told you who you can be watching for on the field, now you know who to be looking for in the stands!!!

Prince William is President of The Football Association and so he is  visiting South Africa on their behalf and then I am quite sure, purely co-incidentally, Prince Harry thought that some time in June 2010 was a good time to go and check out some of the charity work he did in Lesotho in 2008. They will also be stopping off for a visit to Botswana, where Prince William is involved with the wildlife charity Tusk Trust. The visit to South Africa will be the first time that The Princes have carried out joint engagements overseas.

The Princes will attend the match between England and Algeria…which, in case you didn’t know is being played in Cape Town!! They are also expected to be attending England’s first group C match against the United States on June 12 in Rustenburg. We know that certainly the younger of those two boys is not adverse to a nightclub…so Girls, you will need to keep a serious look out!!

Jennifer Hudson at Cannes 2010

Jennifer Hudson is set to start filming a biopic of Winnie Mandela and Winnie is not impressed. The movie will be based on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob’s biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. Apparently, Winnie isn’t too pleased with how she is painted in the script and her lawyers have expressed fears that the project is a veiled “character assassination”. Despite this, filming is set to start on May 31 in SA and the director Darrell Roodt has said “We don’t shy away from the controversies”.

Honestly, what does Winnie expect? By all accounts, Ms Madikizela-Mandela, has not lead the life of a saint. Winnie should just be pleased they picked J-Hud to play her…look at that pic of Jennifer, she is looking great! Although, we all saw what they did to Charlize in Monster…so anything is in fact possible!!!

I think this is going to be an interesting one to watch. I suspect this movie isn’t going to inspire quite the national pride that the recent movie, Invictus, managed to achieve!

Winnie on her wedding day (1957)

A more recent photo of her

There has been a bit of goss doing the rounds that Ellen Pompeo a.k.a Meredith might be following in the footsteps of Katherine Heigl and leaving the set of our beloved Grey’s anatomy.

Pompeo spoke to Extra and said ”I haven’t said I’m moving on, I said that when my contract is up after Season 8 [in two years], I would probably not renew. I think the world has had a lot of Meredith Grey.”

I am not too sure about Grey’s without Meredith…sure there is Little Grey, but really the show was built on Meredith and McDreamy.

Fortunately, we have a while to go before we get to Season 8 and so hopefully someone has thrown enough money at the problem and persuaded her to stick around a bit longer!

So, we all know that the Soccer World Cup is really just around the corner and we have a LOT to look forward to…but I thought that just in case you needed any more reason to get excited for what is heading to our shores in just over a month from today, this might interest you.

The June edition of Vanity Fair features an Annie Liebovitz photo shoot with some of the Soccer World Cup Stars stripped down to…just their flags. The good people at VF were even kind enough to produce a little video clip of the shoots.

Click on this link to learn a bit more about the Stars of the Beautiful Game.

So, next time you hear The Blokes discussing Ronaldo or Drogba…maybe you will be able to put a face to a name and even know which country they will be playing for!